Alonzo King Lines Ballet dancers Madeline DeVries and Michael Montgomery, who joined the company in 2014 and 2010, respectively.
RJ Muna
As Alonzo King Lines Ballet concludes its 40th season this month, the San Francisco–based contemporary dance company can celebrate four decades of acclaimed performances in the Bay Area and beyond that have established the troupe in the dance firmament. Lines can also take its bows for a dedication to individual artistic discovery and development among its dancers that has creatively nurtured them as well as the company and its audiences.
Lines’ artistic vision, which founder and artistic director Alonzo King, cofounder and executive director Robert Rosenwasser and cofounder Pam Hagen unveiled with the company’s launch in 1982, is rooted in the transformative power of dance and its ability to inspire artists, students and audiences through its interdisciplinary performances that include contributions from composers, musicians and visual artists.
“At Lines, we believe that art is the inheritance of every individual, that it activates evolutionary growth, that it is an intellectual virtue and the fostering principle for all that is made, done or known,” King says. “We see Western classical dance not as a style, but as a science based in universal laws that exist in matter, which govern the shapes and movement directions of everything that exists.”
Indeed, the company has sought to change the way audiences view ballet, with a focus on classical form consisting of linear, mathematical and geometric principles, which, as King has observed, are made visible as lines audiences can see. And it is through the human body and its vast potential that these lines, evoking the company’s name, are kinetically expressed.
“The body is an electromagnetic wave,” King explains. “There are billions of energies running through this seemingly solid form. Knowing this, training is different, understanding about movement is informed, and how we think of ourselves in space is informed. The external body is extremely small. The internal body is enormous — it is a miniature of the macro.”
Alonzo King, whose San Francisco–based contemporary ballet company tours domestically and internationally, in Lausanne, Switzerland.
Franck Thibault
Born in Georgia and raised in Santa Barbara, King — the son of civil rights activists — studied ballet in New York. He returned to California to establish Lines. Over the years, his many achievements include receiving a Jacob’s Pillow Dance Award, United States Artists Award and Doris Duke Artist Award.
King cites Paramahansa Yogananda, author of the spiritual opus Autobiography of a Yogi, as having the biggest and most profound influence upon his life. Yogananda’s philosophy clearly dovetails with King’s belief in the artistic potential of everyone. “Yogananda’s writings on how to live life are a treatise on the highest art, which is how to live life,” says King. “The scientific study of yoga catapults individual evolution and reveals to us the hidden secrets of the incredible wonder inside each one of us.”
Educational programs that Lines oversees, such as the BFA program at San Rafael’s Dominican University of California, have been a key part of unlocking the hidden secrets King references, especially among students and teachers, many of whom have joined the troupe as dancers. “I entered this program because I wanted to expand my artistry as well as my training,” recounts company dancer Michael Montgomery, who graduated from the BFA program in 2011. “The Lines BFA program has the proper fundamentals, teachers and artistic program that aligns with that. They not only provide an excellent institution or learning space for young artists who are hungry to grow, but also provide a platform to have a degree.”
Adji Cissoko, who joined Lines in 2014, teaches in the program. “I have learned to really trust my instincts and to be patient and open at all times,” she says. “My students are enthusiastic, and they usually leave my classes and say, ‘Wow, I never looked at it that way. What I have is enough and what I have as an individual is interesting.’”
Lines has notably staged several community-based events, such as the recently scheduled Sunday Streets SF dance classes and “Ballet & Basketball,” a discussion involving Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr. Touring across the United States and around the world also has been an integral part of the company’s annual schedules. Following October’s performances in San Francisco, the 40th season wraps up in Detroit, and the next season opens in January in France. “The world is small,” King points out. “We want to share the work with the world.”
And King has some advice for aspiring dancers and choreographers. “What is inside of you is more fascinating than what is outside in the world,” he shares. “Ask yourself, ‘What is the meaning of life?’ Observe the choreography of birds, how the sky is painted during the day and at night. Dance under water. Movement is the principal expression of life. The heart, lungs, blood, mind, hands and feet are making music. Talk less and listen deeply.”
